Coaching and Consulting
Check out my book – Attention! The Power of Simple Decisions in a Distracted World.
I coach business leaders and executives helping them gain clarity, focus, and make better decisions. You can schedule a Discovery Call to learn more about it here.
Click here to subscribe to the Simple Decisions series.
Check out my book – Attention! The Power of Simple Decisions in a Distracted World.
I coach business leaders and executives helping them gain clarity, focus, and make better decisions. You can schedule a Discovery Call to learn more about it here.
Click here to subscribe to the Simple Decisions series.
Check out my book – Attention! The Power of Simple Decisions in a Distracted World.
I coach business leaders and executives helping them gain clarity, focus, and make better decisions. You can schedule a Discovery Call to learn more about it here.
Click here to subscribe to the Simple Decisions series.
In an interview with Mike Krzyzewski, the Duke University, basketball coach, the host asked him about player discipline and how he enforces rules. Coach K’s response was immediate. He ‘doesn’t like rules.’ He prefers standards. Rules, he explained, ‘only give you one of two options, you either obey the rules or you disobey the rules.’
Rules don’t allow for individualization or opportunities for leadership. Standards, however, can take into account styles, abilities, and circumstances. Standards give people something to which they can aspire. It creates the opportunity to determine how someone will achieve a standard rather than dictating the method by rule.
In our family, we could set a rule that our children wash the dishes and wipe down the counters every single night. Or we could set a standard of maintaining a clean kitchen. The latter allows them to figure out how to maintain that standard.
Having a rule to do something every night could put us all in a difficult situation. When they have a lot of homework or come home late from a family event, they may need to just go to bed. As parents, we either allow them to break the rule or they go to school exhausted. Or they are in a position of having to break the rule to get some much-needed sleep.
However, if there’s a standard of a clean kitchen, the way that they do that might be different. They could rinse their plates immediately after they’ve used them or wipe down the counter after they prepare a snack. They have to figure out ways to live up to the standard of a clean kitchen.
Delivering A Standard
We all strive for good customer service in our business. Having a standard for this allows each member of your team some autonomy. Having a rule that states your company will always respond within 10 minutes, puts you in a very difficult situation. One minute over and you break the rule. Customers get agitated.
If your responses are respectful and helpful, that meets a standard. It leaves people with a better impression. The exact time of your response doesn’t matter as much. Customers will be more forgiving when they know you will always be helpful.
Effort as a Result
When I was younger, we had two types of grades in school, a letter grade and a numerical grade which rated our effort. My parents did not care about the letter grade as much as they did the effort grade. That was the standard. My best effort.
The challenge and opportunity for me was to figure out how to meet that standard. They could have established a rule about doing my homework every single night. Instead, by having the standard that I put in my best effort, it allowed for nuance. It forced me to learn how to manage situations. If I were to miss an assignment there is a natural consequence of a lower grade. But, if I go in to talk with the teacher right away to explain the circumstance. If I work to make it up, that is effort. I may still get a lower grade. But I would argue the lesson learned from navigating that is more valuable than simply following a nightly homework rule.
Don’t get me wrong, I think rules are important. In fact, I think they can help us to maintain the standards that are set. But I find greater value in living up to standards and finding ways to demonstrate them, than I do in following every little rule.
"*" indicates required fields
Are you someone who measures your steps?
Specifically, do you use a device to track your fitness efforts?
There are loads of gadgets out there. Depending on your goals, you can measure everything from steps to calories burned, from miles biked to swim strokes, from how long to how far.
We’ve been told for years that we need to move more, but people still didn’t do it. That’s the primary purpose of these devices, to get you to move more.
What I love about this technology is that it took the idea of moving more and gave people daily targets and a way to measure progress. Quite literally, it breaks down your larger goals into steps.
More is not a enough
For most people it was not enough to know that moving more was a good thing.
That’s because more is not a number. In fact, more is so lacking in definition, pursuing it clouds your vision. More rarely motivates us and our efforts are often flailing and inconsistent.
To be successful, we need to define what more is.
We need to give it a number and pursue and measure our progress towards it.
Starting can be as simple as asking three questions:
Where are you now?
Where do you want to be?
How many _______s will it take to get there?
With fitness trackers, most people choose a daily goal of 10,000 steps. This sounds like a lot unless of course, you are already walking 9,000 steps.
You need to know where you’re starting.
10,000 steps also sounds like a lot until you figure out that to lose five pounds this month, you need to hit 15,000 steps per day.
You need to know what it takes to get there.
Know your numbers
As we find more ways to measure every aspect of our lives, I’m always surprised by how many people don’t apply the same methods to their businesses.
Several months ago my wife did two things that changed her business dramatically.
Megin is a photographer. In her first few years, she set and managed to achieve many of her goals. But recently she’s been operating with a clearer purpose and the results to match.
The first thing Megin did was to identify a larger financial goal for her business.
After taking into consideration the needs of a growing business. She then identified three areas from our personal finances that the revenue from her business would cover. That total was the goal.
The second thing she did was to break down how much revenue she would need to generate each month to meet that goal. She figured out how many sessions it would take.
She looked at the past year’s performance and noted the trends.
There were some months where there was no room for growth. Of course, Megin would still have to fill those slots, but she knew those months were maxed out in terms of her time.
This narrowed her focus on months where there was greater opportunity for growth.
Larger goal. Monthly targets.
Since that time, she uses her numbers to drive her decision making, her marketing, and her daily actions.
It changed everything because the number enables her to measure her success.
Rather than simply pursuing more and hoping for the best, each month is directly tied to a goal, a contribution, and a purpose.
What’s interesting to me is not the financial results, although that’s wonderful, too.
What I find most interesting is how it has fueled her creativity. By being focused on meeting a defined goal, she looks for new ways to serve her clients to hit her goal.
People do the same thing with their step counters. If they haven’t hit their steps by mid-day, they start looking for opportunities to get there. They get creative.
Pursuing more just doesn’t do that for us. And knowing your number makes it easier to get more of whatever it is you’re after. You simply have to define it.
"*" indicates required fields